Survey Shows Adopting New Vancomycin Guidelines is Priority for Pharmacists Despite Pandemic

A survey conducted between March 30 to April 6 by InsightRx found that implementing the new vancomycin guidelines into the pharmacy community is as important as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the healthcare system.¹

On March 19, the new vancomycin guidelines were published and displayed a few major changes for pharmacists to adjust to, including the transition from a trough-based monitoring process to area under the curve, or AUC, based dosing strategies. The last update to the guidelines was in 2009, which introduced the concept of dosing based on AUC and established the relationship between the AUC and the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) as a “useful pharmacodynamic parameter to predict effectiveness.”²

Responses were collected from 104 individuals across the country, including data from antimicrobial stewardship pharmacists, clinical pharmacists, and directors of pharmacy. According to the results, approximately 54% of the respondents knew about the guidelines being released, while 46% did not know at all.¹

Regardless of the respondents’ awareness, 56% said that adopting AUC-guided dosing of vancomycin by either of the 2 recommended methods was either very or extremely important. When asked more in detail about when their pharmacy organizations are expected to adopt the new guidelines, 66% said they aimed to adopt them in the next 6 to 12 months.¹

When questioned about adopting the guidelines, the respondents were asked to consider their answers in context with the COVID-19 pandemic. With this, many respondents’ answers were still prioritizing the rapid adoption of the vancomycin guidelines in the midst of the pandemic, according to InsightRx.¹

“We’ve been anticipating these guidelines for some time now, and truly believe that the potential benefits associated with these guidelines, such as reduced AKIs and other patient safety improvements can have a positive impact for all healthcare organizations,” said Sirj Goswami, InsightRX’s CEO and co-founder in a prepared statement. “It’s good to see that hospital pharmacy leadership agrees.”¹

REFERENCE

• New vancomycin guidelines are surprisingly important even during the COVID-19 crisis. InsightRx [email]. Accessed April 15, 2020.
• Murphy, Jill. What pharmacists can do to prepare for the new vancomycin guidelines. Pharmacy Times. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/what-pharmacists-can-do-to-prepare-for-the-new-vancomycin-guidelines. Published March 19, 2020. Accessed April 15, 2020.